I have been working on the CR fairly regularly lately (10-20 minutes day).

I am still thrilled with being able to play it from beginning to end. Even so, I find my playing to be quite uneven throughout the 5 pages...some sections I can whiz right through and others slow me down (i know, practice the sections that slow me down). There are some transitions between sections where my playing is a bit unreliable, and I'm working on this as well.

At this point, if I had to choose a metronome setting where I would feel confident about my playing from beginning to end, it would be around 55. This setting is just too frustratingly slow for some sections (tries my patience)...so I will be glad when I've got the whole piece up to 60-70.

Anyone else still plugging along with this, or am I the last?

I think I am pretty much out for now. I am working on the Beethoven sonata Op 49 No 2 and the Brahms Waltz in Ab and I LOVE them both. Especially the Beethoven. Every little section is so beautiful. For variety I am working on Maple Leaf Rag, which is much easier than it was when I worked on it a year ago, I am happy to say. I got CR where I could stagger through most of it. I will come back and work on it some more when it is technically easier for me so it does not require so much of my time. I have this great desire to please my teacher. And it is not good to show up to lessons with little progress on my other pieces.

Hi all - I am new to the forum - found it while researching pianos - and am finding many new pieces that I'm eager to learn - so I'm perhaps a little late to participate in this thread. Both my daughter and I would love to learn this - she will pick it up much more quickly than I will - for me it will take time. So the question is - if we wanted to learn the Kanemasu version - is there a way to find the music now since I see that music was ordered and delivered long ago? Otherwise - we'll try the Burrows version. The encouraging atmosphere is inspiring.
regards,
Caroline

Hi Caroline,

Welcome to the ABF, I'm glad you found us. You might be in luck since I'm fairly certain I ordered one extra magazine. Please give me a day or so to locate the extra copy.

As far as I know, the Kanemasu version cannot be ordered in the U.S. or Canada. It is copyrighted by Universal Music Publishing Ltd, with print rights controlled by K.K. Music Sales in Japan. It was printed in a magazine published in Japan called "Piano Life" www.ymm.co.jp/pianolife/ (volume 4). The entire magazine is in Japanese (as well as the website I just gave you), so I cannot tell you any more than that.

If you are interested in my extra copy of the magazine, just send me a private message.

This piece has been a challenge to learn, but it's also been an incredible pleasure.

I have a file of the K version as well as the B version. I could send it to you.

P.S. Jeff, that book has a wealth of information. I had fun looking up all the "difficulty ratings" for common pieces.

Thank you both - I've been working on the B version and enjoying it immensely - I think getting it up to speed will take some time. I would appreciate the file version - might be quicker than the mail. Got to learn some new pieces in honor of a new piano.
thanks,
Caroline

I'm not in the study group, but I'll welcome you to the forum anyway, Mistaya! Hmm... a new piano? What kind? If you're already making your way through Croatian Rhapsody, you're obviously not a brand new beginner. What's your piano background and what kind of music do you like to play?

p.s. to Opus45: I found your earlier statement to the effect that anybody who wants to play this piece should keep slogging away because it's do-able to be very inspirational. Maybe after I get my recital piece polished I will confront my fears and work on CR, however slowly and not so surely.

Hi Monica,
I learned so much from reading about your piano purchasing odyssey - and from others on the forum. I'm waiting for an Estonia to arrive - my brother posted on the piano forum since he bought one as well. I'm not a beginner, but I have a very checkered musical past so I'm assuming I have huge gaps in technique etc. I started with accordian when I was a child and switched to piano in my teens - I've only played off and on since then because school, work and then children took up a lot of time. I tried playing piano for church for a year a while back - just every other week - but I could never get over the nerves - it wasn't difficult musically, but my brain would shut down and my hands would shake - it got to where I couldn't sleep the week before I had to play. I gave up after a year. The last few years I've been accompanying my son's violin pieces so at least my sight reading improved. I'm quite excited about this forum - there is much I can learn here. I'm most interested in classical music and I would like to take some lessons again.
regards,
Caroline

Mistaya
Monica will be amused to read this. Now there are at least two ABF members who also play the accordian. I also have something in common with you...a checkered piano past along with the huge gaps in technique/theory. This is a great place to help you fill in those gaps.

Congratulations on your new Estonia Caroline!

[Monica, we're here for you whenever you want to start playing the CR]

[Piano*Dad, glad someone will be getting some good use from the reference book]

Mistaya,
Welcome to the forums and welcome to the addiction otherwise known as Croatian Rhapsody. It really is a fun song to play, once you get it under your fingers. I also feel your pain when it comes to performing for others. I too get shaky nerves and even tunnel vision when I sit down to play for an audience. I much prefer sharing my recordings...

Jeff,
Nice to see you back. You were quiet for a week or two. Also, kudos for single-handedly wearing Monica down all these months to a point where she almost committed herself to giving the CR a chance. OT: Did you ever order that copy of Last Date?

Monica,
Ha, ha, Jeff is wearing you down... Seriously, though, you should consider the statements of Piano*Dad in this thread, too. This music truly is accessible to many players. You just have to look past the daunting score and perception of excessive speed. I promise it is not as challenging as you think once you get beyond the surface. You can do it!

Yea! Another accordion player! Mistaya, there was no doubt for me that accordion was a tremendous head start in piano, and I was relieved that it didn't take as long to pick up the bass clef as I had initially feared.

But it was a handicap in one real sense: I had, and still have, lousy playing technique. The ideas of using arm weight, rotating the wrist, and playing with your arms and not the fingers just aren't relevant in accordion, so it's been a struggle for me to play the piano correctly.

And congratulations on your new Estonia! They are great pianos.

Dean, I always have wanted to play CR since ShiroKuro first posted the recording, but feared either that I couldn't or would have to invest so much time in it that it would interfere with learning other things I wanted and wouldn't be enjoyable. But I will say I am encouraged by the progress all of you on the study group have shown... so maybe it wouldn't be that bad after all. After I finish GRYMG I won't have a challenge/stretch piece on my practice repertoire, so CR may be just the one to add. Especially now that y'all have done the hard work of figuring out the fingering for me.

This piece is huge fun and quite patterned - I just read (some of) Chang's How to Practice and he suggests learning fast pieces at close to final speed in sections - has anyone done this? Much of what he describes is so different from how I learned pieces - I always "sight read them to death" - but I'm willing to try something new.
The recordings here are wonderful! Great job. Are you all mostly
finished with the piece?

I haven't read any of Chang's material, what exactly is the suggestion Chang is making? I too typically learn songs by trudging through them until they submit to my will. In the spirit of trying something new (online learning group) I did actually approach this piece in sections. It really worked well because there are specific moments within this piece that are substantially more challenging than the rest. Specifically I thought the two big challenges were the four measures in section I, and the final three sections after the key change (O, P, & R). I am not sure what would have been optimal, but I stayed away from O, P, and R until I had learned the rest pretty well. My reasoning was that I felt that that altered fingering only complicated my learning progress for the earlier sections. I would suggest maybe breaking down into your sections and put "I" as a top priority. It will potentially take a few weeks of drilling that section to really get a good handle on it. In the meantime you can be working through the other sections at whatever pace you choose. This may be obvious to you, but if you do break this down by section don't forget to overlap your sections so you don't have mental gaps as you transition from one section to the next.

I have quit improving. I still play it a couple times once or twice a week. I would play it more, but I have been focused on a lot of new music, which takes up a lot of my play time right now.

Thanks, Dean
I have been breaking it into sections and like you - realized section I would take some time - I haven't gone near the key change yet. The reminder to overlap sections is a good one - often don't do that.
Chang suggests that you should learn sections close to their final speed hands separate and be able to actually play them HS faster than the goal speed before putting things hands together. The logic is that finger/hand movements that are comfortable at slow speed may not work at higher speeds and you can also save yourself some time by just starting out faster. He likens it to getting a horse to gallop by increasing the speed of the walk - the actual gait is different. He does advocate slow practice as well to help memorize and suggests playing through slowly at the end of the practice. I'd hate to say too much because I haven't read through everything carefully yet. I'm eager to try his approach to memorization as well - ie. might as well memorize as I go. I guess I'm starting out months behind everyone else.
Caroline

I definitely like the concept of memorizing during the learning process. This is something I am trying to focus on these days. My personal goal is to build up to two hours of memorized material. I have a long way to go.

You will probably find out that the repetitive nature of this piece makes it easy to memorize. I almost couldn't help but memorize it as I learned.

Hi everyone, i'm not sure if this is a dead topic or not, I hope not I just heard Croatian Rhapsody a few days ago, and i found this topic and thought perhaps you guys could give me some tips that might be helpful. Right now i've memorized up to measure 35 that i keep reading all this dreaded information about. Any tips or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Welcome to the forum, musicman915! My only advice is to run as fast as you can in the opposite direction of Croatian Rhapsody, before it breaks your heart.

[says someone who still swears that one of these days she is going to learn that piece. ]

Welcome Musicman -
You'll find a lot of wonderful ideas on this site - and a lot of encouragement.

I'm quite new to the forum as well and started learning this piece in early Oct. Which version are you learning? The measure 35 section that I used was the K version. I learned it hands separately first and then put them together slowly and carefully. Once the brain accepted where they fit together, it was great fun to play. I did do a lot of focused practice on this section. I learned the double arpeggio section from the B score and I have trouble keeping this up to speed when not totally relaxed. For me these were the areas that needed the most attention. I still haven't spent time on the key change because it's a lot more fun to play the bits I now know.

Good luck with CR.

Thanks musicman, for bumping this thread back up to the top where I would notice it. I remember Monica writing something about wanting to play this piece eventually, and it piqued my interest, but I forgot to write and ask what it was.

I would really love to play this! I need something fast right now. I haven't read all 17 pages of this thread, but can anyone summarize for me what edition you think is closest to the MP3 version in ShiroKuro's first message? Is there one that the composer has done that I can order, or is the Matthew Burrows one about as right as anything? I like to have a recording to be what I aim for, but if the written notes don't match it, I'll drive myself crazy trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong. (I experienced this before with Linus and Lucy--I'm sure that was the only reason I didn't sound like Vince Guaraldi :-))

Thanks for introducing this! I can't wait to get started!

Nancy

Nancy,

Send me a private message with your Email and I will get a copy to you.

I'm leaving for holiday social(s) all evening/night & will be spending time on a horse farm tomorrow so I probably won't have an opportunity to send it to you until tomorrow or Monday, but I will get it to you. (long story re: availablility...)

Okay--I'll email you right away. I just finished pages 1-7 of this thread, and just the logistics are hilarious. You all have incredible dedication to this great piece!

Nancy

Dean--I just got a chance to listen to your recording, and it was great! It must have felt terrific to master this piece. Can you still play it?

And Piano*Dad, I listened to Piano*Son's recording also, and it was beautiful, a totally different interpretation. I'm sure it sounded good at church--very soothing and legato in most of the sections. Did it drive you crazy to hear him practicing this? I think some pieces are easier on the ears in their early stages than others.

Has anyone besides Dean and Piano*Son recorded this? If so, please let me know where I can find them. I've really enjoyed listening to these two.

Nancy

Nancy,

There are two versions floating around that we used. I don't really remember which one ShiroKuro was using, but a little corner of my brain thinks it was the Burrows version. The other is the Kanemasu version. There are substantial differences. The arpeggiated section on page two (I think) of Burrows is harder than the corresponding section in Kanemasu. On the other hand, I think many people prefered the opening page of K to B. Then there is the dreaded "section I" of K, which people really liked. It has a growly syncopation that the Burrows version lacks. Get both versions and then you can mix and match various parts to your own taste. The piece is a natural for improvising your own passages as well.

Actually, the learning process was rather fun for me and Piano*Son Anthony. It was a great exercise in fingering those arpeggios and in mastering the syncopation. Then there is that transposition up a half step at the end so that you're repeating the first section on the black keys. That something fun to master as well.

Okay, I spent some of last evening and an hour this morning playing through the K version after reading Piano*Dad's explanation and going back through all 17 pages of this thread. I do like the arpeggio section of the B, but for the time being I'm just going to work from this K score. I don't think it would be too hard to add those arpeggios after I get the rest of it nailed (unless I am too old for piano by that time).

I have some questions for any of you who were on this originally, since obviously everyone is farther ahead than I am.

1-Did you just work one section at a time, speed it up, and then move on, or did you try to keep all the sections together in tempo and then move the whole piece up?

2-Is there any pedaling in this piece? I can't tell from the recording because my computer speakers make everything sound run together.

3-Those of you that got it pretty much up to tempo--did it have to be memorized for that? I'm pretty sure I'll memorize it as I go just from repetition.

Thanks for helping me even though I'm very late to this party!

Nancy

Nancy,

My last available issue of the PIANO LIFE magazine with the copy of the Croatian Rhapsody will be in the mail to you next week.

I know I didn't mention it to you, and I'm not sure if it was mentioned in this thread, but this magazine is entirely in Japanese (the CR is on pages 53-57).

With regard to your questions...

1-Did you just work one section at a time, speed it up, and then move on, or did you try to keep all the sections together in tempo and then move the whole piece up?[/b]

I think I'm fairly sure that everyone did pretty much everything you just described. In some places some of us worked only one section at a time, and in other places it seemed as if it made sense to learn several sections as a group.
I also seem to recall that most everyone worked on different sections and moved onto the next group of sections after achieving some sort of arbitrary tempo that felt comfortable enough to justify moving onto the next section even though it might not have been up to performance tempo. For example, I moved onto section D after getting sections A-D up to about 50-60, if memory serves.

The following is how I grouped the CR in terms of learning blocks:

• A,B,C: First Group
• D,E,F,G,H: Second Group
• I: Third Group
• J,K,L,M: Fourth Group
• N,O,P,Q: Fifth Group
• R: Final Group

2-Is there any pedaling in this piece? I can't tell from the recording because my computer speakers make everything sound run together.[/b]

I pedal intuitively and liberally throughout the entire Croatian Rhapsody.

3-Those of you that got it pretty much up to tempo--did it have to be memorized for that? I'm pretty sure I'll memorize it as I go just from repetition.[/b]

I did not memorize to get it up to my own current tempo, I started memorizing after I got the notes under my fingers, but from what I've learned from other threads in the ABF, this would depend on one's own personal learning style. Some folks memorize quickly as they go along, and others tend to rely on reading the notes for a longer period of time...and I'm sure there's other factors and variables involved in one's own learning style.

You didn't ask this, but I'll share it anyway. Some of us approached this head on and very rapidly relatively speaking. Others of us took more time (I was in the slower group.)

I started sometime in June, and now nearly six months later, I can play it from beginning to end at a fairly moderate tempo, but not nearly as fast as Dean, and Mel, and Piano*Son (the star performers of the group...forgive me if I left out any other star performers). I have it fairly well memorized (except for section P & Q), and intend to meet my goal of having it memorized by the end of the year. I will have to conceed that I probably won't meet my goal of playing the entire piece up to tempo by the end of the year, but I'm not dissapointed by this, rather, I remain pretty excited about increasing the tempo, and refining my interpretation of this very delightful and fun to play Rhapsody.

One more thing, there are other folks still working on this. I understand from another thread that ShiroKuro (the lady who started this thread, and was recently appointed as Moderator of the ABF) will be working on the Croatian Rhapsody once her concert is over, or at the start of the new year(?). She would be an excellent source should you have any specific technical questions...

I apologize for this lengthy post, but I think I can safely assume that only those who have an interest would bother to read this anyway .

Good Luck Nancy, and Welcome aboard!

Thanks for so much information! That was exactly what I needed. I think grouping the sections will be especially helpful. I laughed at seeing "I" in a group by itself!

Last year I played a Bach Prelude (c minor) that I think will be a similar process to this (lots of notes played quickly).

Step one--Listen to recording. Exclaim, "No way."
Step two--Look at notes. Decide, "Not impossible."
Step three--Slowly work through notes hundreds of times until they are a sixth sense.
Step four--Start cranking up the tempo and see how close to the recording you can get.

With the Bach I never expected to get up to the recording's tempo, but I decided to keep at it for months after I normally would have determined it was complete. Another three months of playing it regularly and the tempo from the recording wasn't even that difficult. I think some things just need time to really get into your muscle memory before you can play them fast, but it is really possible to do if you give it enough time.

So now that I've taken one piece from "No way" up to tempo, I feel more confident about trying it again. I think Croatian Rhapsody will be a great one to have on my playlist. Maybe I'll make a prediction--hmmm...Feb. 15. I'll set that as my goal--we'll see what the tempo is by that day.

Nancy

Whether or not you memorize as an adjunct to learning is a function of your learning style. P*S memorizes automatically as he goes along. This is a skill I don't have in such abundance. It sure helps him put the pieces of the puzzle together more quickly and it means he can accelerate the tempo rather rapidly once he has the basic structure in his head. But working from the page is fine too, especially if you're a good reader and you have a good tactile sense of the keyboard.

We chopped the piece up to learn it. He mastered the first section (up to "I" in the K version) as two ideas (the main theme and the arpeggios). The "I" section was a separate experience. Then the transposition up was a third, but natural, extension.

Best,

David

I've often wondered how people memorize things. Memory work comes pretty easily to me, but I've always felt it's because the reading and getting the notes right comes so slowly that I've put lots more time into a piece than the average pianist by the time I get it under my fingers.
I have a friend who swears it takes her ten times as long to memorize a piece as to play it, so there must be all styles out there.

I think I'm going to play around with some of the sections casually, but I think I'll work hardest first on I. Rhythm is not a strong suit of mine, and having the hands so far apart makes it even harder. I think I'll feel better getting that section underway.

Nancy

Jeff--I did remember you saying that magazine was in Japanese, which brings a question to mind--is the information on the music in Japanese also? I'm not worried about the musical information, but most especially about the copyright stuff at the bottom.

I want to play this for the Federation of Music Clubs event that my teacher tries to get all of us adult to enter in March. However, they are very picky about you having a legal copy of the music, and they are not hip to the new technology of sheet music download. I got the Rachmaninoff Prelude I'm playing as my required piece from everynote.com, and they are having to take it up the chain of command to see if I can use it or if I have to buy the book. I mean, I did buy the piece ($1.86), but it's printed out from my computer and could be a copy for all they know.

Shiro--I guess this is really a question for you unless someone else on this forum reads Japanese. Can you tell me what the copyright says on the bottom of the music in the magazine?

I'm so surprised this piece isn't available in the U.S. from any publisher. It would be a big seller, I bet.

Nancy

Thank you for the warm welcome

I've been playing around with the rhapsody for 5 days now and i'm still having a blast. I decided when i heard it that i would just learn it piece by piece from beginning to end, and it's working pretty well i'd say. Unfortunately i don't even own a piano, i go up to the college that's a block away from my house to practice, so i don't get to practice as often as i'd like. Luckily, i'm getting a new Yamaha for Christmas though!

Hope everyone is doing well!


-Connor